ArthurUSCG

1 minute ago, sergel02 said:

Oh I didn’t even think about the LNG factor for the new ships. Would make sense they’ll keep their 3 new ships centered around Port Canaveral then. I don’t think the Dream or Fantasy ever left the Caribbean.

 

Makes me wonder when they’ll refurbish the Dream and Fantasy. Beautiful ships but the staterooms are starting to look slightly dated.

Honestly, I like the Dream and Fantasy state rooms more then the pictures of the Wish room so far. The Dream and Fantasy rooms look like they belong on a ship and are fitting with the nostalgic art deco look of the ships.

I like a good cigar from time to time and there is no way I'm going indoors into a casino filled with smoke. There's a difference smelling like a new cigar compared to a room of old cigarettes'. I was in the casino of the Empress of the Seas for about 30 minutes until it started to smell and I was done for the rest of the cruise and avoided even cutting thru the casino. 

7 hours ago, sergel02 said:

I feel like Yokohama would be a nice Asia port because they have Disney Sea in that area. Disney is pretty popular in Japan and Marvel in Korea.

 

But yes, the mouse does things differently. I was honestly surprised to find out the Wish is basically just doing the Dream’s sailing alongside it, so my excitement of a new itinerary kind of deflated.

Looking at the fall 2022 schedule, the Dream is going down to Miami.

Given that DCL will have a 2nd private island, I suspect, there will be at least 4 ships that will be positioned to make routine stops at the island. The private island are a money maker and draw for DCL over other cruise lines. I would also think the 3 new ships would all be stationed at PC, just for efficiency of operations stand point, considering they will all be using LNG and then there is almost identical work load for the shore side operations. 

By December, the USA could have the vaccine approved for children down to 5 years old by then. Pfizer is still targeting to have the results to the FDA/CDC by the end of September.

But as far as the PCR test, depending on the company making the test, it could require swabbing deeper in the nasal cavity.

12 hours ago, njkruzer said:

We have Global Entry, only$15 more.  Even our granddaughter has it.

Yea, that's the one I was thinking of but my mind went to TSA rather then CBP.

12 minutes ago, Cigar King said:

It's great ID, fits in a wallet, and is cheap.  I'd vote for getting it.

Usually the state IDs are cheaper then the $30 passport card cost, and now that the state IDs are "Real IDs" there's not much benefit to the Passport Card. I would put the $30 towards PreCheck.

Don't bother getting the Card, it is useless except for land crossings.

Looking at the end of the video, it appears to be the normal folding dividing wall. You could leave a comment asking the person.
 

17 minutes ago, cruise47 said:

Have anyone cruise out of Baltimore in April or May? Plus, what are you impressions of sailing in an Owners Suite on the Enchantment of the Season?

We are looking at sailing in April or May 2022.

We did it out of Norfolk, to Bermuda in May, it was nice, the air was warm enough, but the water was still cold for the snorkeling. Not, cold where you wanted to get out but cold enough after a few hours of snorkeling, your body felt cold and wanted a hot shower.

3 hours ago, mauraoel said:

Not that I don't agree that they are going to try and better enforce check in times now, I do think the check-in in Nassau and the states is going to be different going forward, they won't be testing everyone at check-in  only the unvaccinated.  That should smooth out the process a little.

I thought the latest thing from Michael Bayley or Richard Fain said everyone was getting antigen tested dock side, but the vaccinated wouldn't need to be PCR tested 3 days before.

2 hours ago, rtazz17 said:

Doubtful they enforce check in time. You will still be there hanging around so whats the difference. 

They could deny entry into the terminal. Given the amount of space needed for testing and spacing of groups, it's likely that you will be told to wait outside the terminal. If you look at the pictures from the Nassau sailing, each group has what looks like chairs are separated by 6 ft while you wait for the test results and the entire boarding process is going to take longer.

21 hours ago, sm3ds said:

They going to be hard to justify if Covid numbers are not significant, but was ever about covid in the first place? Or was Covid just a means to an end. 

Usually traditionally it is the countries without the resources or money to vaccinate their population that required the WHO Yellow card. Typically USA passport holders were exempt from requiring the Yellow Card for what we would consider the normal vaccines, because the USA vaccination rate was high enough.  Back in the 90s, the Caribbean was still requiring the Polio and Measles vaccines for travelers since the islands hadn't eradicatied them yet, but the USA population vaccination rate has been in the upper 90%, so from what I was told, USA passport holders didn't have to present a Yellow Card with the vaccinations, the islands considered all USA passport holders vaccinated.

4 hours ago, sm3ds said:

I’ve been on 25 cruises, but I would rather never cruise again then have to carry a health pass or vaccine passport.  The longer I go without cruising the less I miss it.. I’m  sure 90% of the country or more  have never been on a cruise. Florida makes a lot of revenue off cruising,  but they’d be fine without it. 

It's sounding more and more like an updated WHO Yellow card is going to be needed for a lot of international travel.

5 hours ago, coldflame said:

 

100% people in these forums are absolutely deluded on the importance of cruising for FL or any US state for that matter. Endless acrimonious threads, specially on RCL board, with zero data to back up their claims up. Cruising could altogether disappear and the economic impact would be negligible.

Yep, people switched from cruises to land based vacations, which since most are choosing a USA based industry is keeping more of the money state side rather to foreign flagged, built and crewed ships.

Also, full on a ship doesn't mean that every room is booked, it means the ship has reached capacity of the life boats. Often, based on max capacity of the rooms, the ship can hold more then what the life boats or other SOLAS gear can accommodate.

So, a full ship can still have empty rooms. Saying a ship is at maximum passenger capacity is a better description.

2 hours ago, sm3ds said:

It's not DeSantis, It's a Florida law. It is no longer just an executive order. I'm not sure why that is so hard for people to grasp. The only one making it political is you. 

The law doesn't state the minimum, just max, and guess who is the one at the top of the agencies. That means DeSantis can tell them to set the fine to $0. It's all political games to him to win reelection and is less concerned about getting cruises back up an running, since he can point to the CDC boogeyman.

Flying Dutchman of the Seas, since she can never dock

Part of the crew. Part of the ship

18 minutes ago, jsf said:

They tried assigning times years ago, didn't seem to work out well.

DCL has been doing Port Arrival Times (PAT), which is the time you are suppose to arrive at the terminal and not a boarding time, the boarding time/ group  is determined in the terminal. It's likely RCCL will be going that route. It's also what Celebrity used for the recent Caribbean sailings.

1 hour ago, mpk said:

 

Say an unvaccinated party tested positive...  but sat at the same Teppanyaki table next to a vaccinated party they do not know.

 

Do both parties get debarked at the next port?

If the cruise line is using the CDC 15 minute within 6ft definition for close contact, then Winner Winner Chicken dinner.

But We don't know what rules the cruise lines are going by, unless they say.

Getting it onto the ship from a country that is more relaxed about security would be the relatively easy part. All it would take is someone to pack it in the middle of a cargo/food shipment and then the crew members dealing with said cargo to stash it somewhere. Transporting large volumes off the ship would be a problem, since there isn't a much leaving the ship that isn't going thru customs checks.

18 minutes ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

 

Here's how mine went via CVS pharmacy....

The nurse physically hand wrote my pertinent info including name, SS#, date, and the vial# on a form for her/their records.  She then wrote down my name, date, the vial# on a vaccine record card and issued it to me. So sometime later this info was then transcribed and manually data entered into a data base. My point is that this process lends itself to human error.  Especially if one multiplies this by millions upon millions. TBH, having experienced this first hand and how my M-I-L' s was processed, I personally would have issues accusing anyone of using a falsified vaccine card. But hey... that's me.  

When I went thru, I had to enter all of the info into the registration system, the person verified the info against my ID, they entered or selected the lot# into the system, then put the sticker with the lot# on the card and wrote my info along with the 2nd appt reminder on it.

Given that the lot number is the same for all of the vials in the box, it's likely a retail pharmacy is using the same lot number for most of the day. Unless you were a walk up, the name and SS# written down should be cross checked with the info entered when you made the appointment, so minor errors like spelling are corrected. So, the human error that does happen should be caught by the system and flagged for correction or be obvious when reviewed latter.

But even with the method you wrote, when going later to verify her vaccine status, something should match when queering the database. Usually it only takes 1 piece of info to match, name, address, SS# for those records to come up and then the person will select the best match, this also allows for them to see obvious mistakes like Jimmy vs Jimy vs Jimmie when verifying status.

I work a lot with very large data sets and often from multiple agencies, a good programer or spec writer can fix a lot of human error.

9 hours ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

So it appears that RCG doesn't believe the vaccine is working enough. So let's review...

 

Today word from RCL comes out suddenly that all vaccinated passengers to be tested for a future cruise on the Adventure.

Today, word is released that two passengers test positive on a vaccinated cruise from Celebrity.

 

Naw... now way these two things are related.

 

Sure sounds like RCG is starting to question vsaccines.  

 

Given that the 2 individuals are asymptomatic, I'm thinking this is showing exactly why the CDC prefers 95% vaccination rate on cruises. The 2 people were likely infected prior to boarding, and so far, no one else on board has gotten sick. Think about that, those 2 people were dinning, going to shows with, going on shore excursions, for days with the rest of the ship.

Now, we have to wait a full 2 weeks to full know, but likely in the next 4 days we will have a very good idea how well the vaccine works to prevent the spread of covid to other vaccinated individuals. Given that the cruise is on day 6, when the testing happened, it's likely more would have tested positive if the vaccine didn't work as well as it does.

Hopefully, this makes RCG question the non vaccinated cruises going forward.
 

1 minute ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

The vaccine csards are a hot mess though. My 81 yr old M-I-L left her vaccine card at home for her 2nd pfizer shot. They jabbed her anyway and sent her down the road. She has a date only, No trace of the vial # or anything. The facts will show that human error will be created when you administer millions upon millions of these jabs. Proving a 'fake' vaccine is going to be very very difficult. 

Think of the CDC card as an appointment reminder card that the nurse scribbles the date and time on. The cards were designed only for the patient's infomation and not as a form of vaccine record. But just so you know, the site verifies in their records that they are administering the 2nd shot and should have instructed her to keep the 2nd card with the 1st card. The vaccine site and the state agency that stores the health records, has both shot information in the database.

there is already a few threads about this

And now we know the real reason why RCL is testing even vaccinated passengers before embarking.

https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2021/06/10/celebrity-millennium-vaccinated-guests-test-positive-for-coronavirus